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Who Owns Antarctica?

October 15, 2015

Written byCuriosity Staff

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Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest and most uninhabited place on Earth, lacking a permanent population and indigenous peoples. So who owns it? The United Kingdom was first to lay claim on parts of Antarctica. But by the 1930s, France, Norway, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and Nazi Germany had claimed territory there as well. By 1959, twelve nations signed the Antarctic Treaty to establish the region as a joint condominium.